How to Raise Ducks: Duck Farming and Management Tips
Duck farming is a profitable poultry business due to the fact that duck breeds are disease resistant to diseases unlike other poultry birds. Ducks are able to lay 160–180 eggs annually, which can be incubated or sold. Just as other poultry birds, Ducks can be raised under a wide variety of conditions, ranging from a backyard for a few ducks to housing for large flocks on a commercial duck farm. Regardless of the category of duck keeping, there are certain basic requirements that must be met if ducks are to remain healthy. This article is intended to educate duck farmers with regard to meeting these basic requirements.
Common Duck Breeds
Some Duck breeds are special for meat, while others perform better in egg laying. Among the egg laying breeds, Khaki Campbell is the best producer. Egg laying Ducks can produce around 300 eggs annually. Egg size varies from 65 to 75 grams. White Pekin is the most popular duck in the world known for table purpose. It is fast growing and has low feed consumption with fine quality of meat. It attains about 2.2 to 2.5 Kgs of body weight in 42 days of age, with a feed conversion ratio of 1:2.3 to 2.7 Kgs
Management
Choosing a place to raise ducks
For successful Duck farming, firstly you must choose a best place where you will raise your Ducks. The place needs to be close where you can watch them easily. You should look for a place that has shade for your ducks on hot days. You need also to construct a Duck house where they should be going for protection from wind or on days when it is cold or wet.
The selected place should have enough food that ducks like to eat. It should be a good place, the one which is near to water where your ducks can easily get to water and where they can swim. Raising a flock of ducks is only one use for your land, which you have selected to do your Duck farming, so be careful not to choose a place for them that could be better used for something else, such as planting crops or growing a vegetable garden.
Remember, that ducks can live just about anywhere outside as long as they can find enough to eat and drink, as well as being protected from predators.
Housing
Ducks can be raised on free range where housing cannot be a big problem. However, they will live much better if they have a shelter. The main reason for building a shelter for your ducks is to keep them safe from predators at night when they are sleeping. Ducks, especially young ducks, have many enemies, which can attack your Ducks. These predators includes dogs, cats, mongoose, rats etc.
Ducks excrete more water in their faeces. For this reason, it is very difficult to raise your Ducks on litter system. Hence, slatted floor is preferred so that manure can be washed and floor can be dried. On concrete flooring, welded wire (1.25 cm x 1.25 cm of 8 gauge) can be fixed leaving a gap of 10 cm.
After brooding (4 weeks) your Ducks, they should be reared on welded wire (2.5 cm x 2.5 cm of 8 gauge). Where swimming facility can be provided, pond (usually made of concrete) dimensions can be 0.9 m wide, 20 to 30 cm deep and the length depending on the number of birds. Dimensions of a house should be calculated easily depending on the number and age of ducks with the floor space requirement given above. Similarly, you should estimate the number and size of feeders and drinkers required. Arrangement of feeders and drinkers is also similar to chicken.
Feeding
Ducks prefer pellet feeds because they can easily eat them. Pellet feed size generally used is 0.3 cm for starter ration and 0.5 cm for other categories. For meat-type ducks, Starter, Grower and Finisher rations should be given during first 2 weeks, 3 to 6 weeks and 7th week to market, respectively.
For egg-type ducks, Starter, grower and layer rations should be offered similar to that of chicken. Layer ration should be provided one month prior to the expected onset of Duck lay. Duck feed restriction program is also similar to chicken.
Brooding (0 - 4 weeks)
Brooding is similar to chicken and ducklings do not require swimming water. If swimming is provided to the ducks, care has to be taken to regularly clean and disinfect the pond to prevent them from early infection. Stagnant water should be avoided because it can cause diseases to your Ducks instead of giving comfort. If land is not a limitation, ducks can be reared in semi-intensive system with a night shelter.
The brooding period of egg laying Khaki Campbell ducklings is 3 to 4 weeks. For meat type ducklings such as Pekin, brooding for 2 to 3 weeks is sufficient. You should provide hover space of 90 to 100 sq.cms. per ducklings under the brooder. A temperature of 29 to 32 °C (85 to 90 °C) should be maintained during the first week. Then it should be reduced by about 3 °C per week till it reaches 24 °C (75 °F) during the fourth week. Ducklings may be brooded in wire floor, litter or batteries. A wire floor space of 0.046m² (1/2 sq, ft.) per Duck or solid floor space of 0.093 m² (1 sq.ft.) per Duck would be sufficient up to 3 weeks of age.
Debilling
Duck debilling is similar to beak-trimming in chicken. Pecking in Ducks generally begins around three weeks of age when the adult plumage begins to grow. Trimming the bill is stressful and probably causes some pain in Ducks. After trimming, lower Duck bill will be left longer than the upper one. Duck trimming can be done at the hatchery by cutting and cauterizing the nail of the upper bill with an electric beak trimmer. But, handling each duckling (newly hatched chick) is more stressful, bill will be quite small and it may re-grow. Hence, it may not be accurate. Duck trimming should be done at 7 to 21 days of age; but usually performed at 4 weeks of age by using electrical beak -trimmer.
Egg production
Ducks during egg laying should be housed in cages similar to chicken. But, the height at which feed and water are arranged should be suitably reduced. Ducks do not drink from nipples. Therefore, watering channel should be fixed all along the width of the cage in front above the feeding channel with a gap of 10 cm for feeding. Egg-type ducks reach more than 90% production within 5 weeks. Most of the eggs are laid before 7 am and hence they should be collected at around 7 am.
Incubation and hatching
Incubation of eggs in Ducks is similar to chicken except that, a relative humidity of 75% is required in Duck incubation period throughout the period and total incubation period is 28 days. Duck eggs should be transferred from setter into the hatcher on 25th day. If the eggs are held for more than one week before setting, they have to be turned daily. The incubation period of Khaki Campbell duck is known to be 28 days. In forced draft incubators satisfactory results are attained at a temperature of 37.5 to 37.2 °C (99.5 to 99 °F).
Rearing (15-16 Weeks)
Ducklings can be reared in intensive, semi-intensive or range system. Under intensive system, you should allow a floor space of 0.279m² (3 sq.ft.) up to 16 weeks of Duck age.
Under semi-intensive system, a floor space of 0.186 to 0.279m² (21/2 to 3 sq.ft) per bird is should be allowed in night shelter and 0.929 to 1.394 m² (10 to 15 sq.ft.) as outside run per Duck bird upto the age of 16 weeks.
Ducklings should be allowed to move to runs at the end of 3 to 4 weeks of age depending upon weather. Water in the drinkers should be 12.5 to 15 cm (5” to 6”) deep to allow minimum immersion of their heads.